This was an excellent movie. Amazing photography and casting and an
intelligent scenario which passes messages about how horrific war is
to the audience in the mildest yet touching way I've seen.
The story involves a hospital in Scotland where officers are sent when
they suffer a breakdown, a common phenomenon in the first and second
world wars. In there, a doctor (played by Jonathan Pryce) attempts to
treat his patients in a more humane way than the one other doctors of
the time choose. Through the stories of characters in the hospital --
including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, two poets who happen to
meet and become friends in the hospital -- the life of the British
soldiers in the first World War, as well as several political messages
about that affecting era for humanity are successfully transmitted to
the audience, without blood, without effects or huge battle scenes in
a way that touches and indicates its significance more than any other
film I've seen about the subject.
The performances are excellent, with Johny Lee Miller -- who apart
from this movie has not shown any signs of serious acting that I've
seen -- delivering a very good performance of a shocked and ambitious
officer and Jonathan Pryce metaphorically accepting the ideas of
Sassoon -- who opposes to the war after a point where he realises its
futility and the lack of values in the politicians driving it -- can
be though as the link between the soldiers and humanity itself.
It is definitely a movie I would recommend! Excellent.
